


kill your heroes

by nifeandaccurate (12AM)



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Backstory, Gen, Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-23
Updated: 2014-11-23
Packaged: 2018-02-26 16:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2659022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/12AM/pseuds/nifeandaccurate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"We'll get out of here one day," he tells her. They believe and they do not believe. This town collects people like flypaper and they have flown too close.</i><br/> <br/><i>She sits with her back to his chest. They breathe together. They plan together.</i></p>
<p>Ariadne and Yusuf, stuck in a small town and trying to escape.</p>
            </blockquote>





	kill your heroes

**Author's Note:**

> Find me over on tumblr at nifeandaccurate.tumblr.com
> 
> Many thanks to [Tre](http://archiveofourown.org/users/trevania/pseuds/trevania) for looking this over. <3

 

"We'll get out of here one day," he tells her. They believe and they do not believe. This town collects people like flypaper and they have flown too close.

She sits with her back to his chest. They breathe together. They plan together.

 

 

"Good morning, darlin', what can I get you today?" she chirps, smile as fake as the rest of her. She radiates cheer and all the goodness that can be found in small towns.

This is not who she is but who she has to be.

 

 

At night they press in together with bodies that have learned intimacy from each other. He braids her hair as she tells him stories of the person she was going to be. He tells her stories of the people he left behind. They are together but they have not been together. This is all that they need. They are two people trying to escape a town stinking of vinegar.

 

 

They look at her and they see what they want to see. She smiles as she takes their order and they smile back. When she walks away, her smile drops like the fall of a stage curtain. She twirls her braid around her finger.

 

 

He stands behind the counter with a placid smile, his hands twitching. He remembers the smooth feeling of flasks and humming electrical equipment under his hands. He remembers a life different from this one. He'll start a new life when he leaves with her but until then, he does what he has to do and bides his time. A person must do whatever they need to in order to survive and this is the only way he knows how to be strong.

 

 

She watches the two men who walked in together. She notices everyone in the small diner but she watches the two of them now. They are not from this town, clear in the way they walk and the way they talk and the way they look around the room. She sees the way the regulars whisper, as if anything louder will invoke a reaction. She serves them with a saccharine smile. She has raised and demolished cities in her mind. They will not be the most dangerous things in there.

They see her.

She doesn't bother to wait until walking away to let the smile drop from her face. Let them see.

 

 

When he comes to the diner to pick her up after her shift, the two men are still there. One of them turns their head to look at him as he walks in through the door. He does not look back.

He goes to the counter where she is standing there, washcloth stiff in her hands. She cranes upward to speak into his ear.

"Let's go," she says.

They do not speak again until they have returned to their apartment that is not a home.

 

 

He knows his manager talks behind his back; he's heard the man muttering behind closed doors.

He doesn't mind-- he's heard worse-- but he knows she burns with anger for him. He doesn't mind this, either.

He doesn't move to calm her fury. It's been so long since something in this town sparked a reaction.

He knows what she is planning. He doesn't try to keep her hands clean because he knows that both their hands are already stained.

Instead, he looks over her plans and makes quiet suggestions. It wouldn't do for both of them to be stuck in this town for any longer than necessary.

If she is to go behind bars, then so will he.

Ideally, it wouldn't have to come down to this but idealism never lasts long in places like these.

 

 

T minus one day. They have their alibis planned and everything is in place. On his word the plan will come crashing into motion. She stands by his side.

He asks her, "Are you ready?"

She smiles.

 

 

They haven't felt this alive in a long time.

 

 

The news spreads as fast as the fire did.

 

 

The next day, she walks into the diner with her skin scrubbed clean of ash.

She makes the rounds with the regulars, listening to them ask if she's heard about how that poor man's house burned down, and _oh isn't it a tragedy?_   She murmurs condolences and offers a pot of lukewarm coffee instead of sincerity.

She glances at the two strangers sitting in a corner. They glance back.

This time, she is not the first to look away.

 

 

Later, when the diner is close to empty and the buzzing of the florescent lights settles in the back of her head like a swarm of flies, they approach her. They speak with words that sound like they belong behind layers of security and rubber stamps.

She has never seen the inside of a government compound but she thinks she knows what it feels like now.

She wonders how soon they could make her disappear.

She wonders if she has already disappeared.

They tell her about an underground world built off of military technology, existing just under the conscious. They tell her about how in this world, you can raise cities with a thought and level them in the next. They tell her they can take her away from this town.

She tells them she will think about it.

They look at her like they already know what she's going to say. She already knows, too.

That night, she goes to him and whispers in his ear the secrets they told her.

They are awake late into the night, flush with possibility.

 

 

The next day, they pack their bags. They gather the remnants of their past into boxes and they leave. She walks with his hand in hers to the diner where the two men are waiting outside. One of them has a silver briefcase in his hand. The other smiles and gestures to where a car is waiting on the corner.

She grins.

"Let's get out of here."


End file.
